Mining for Clues: Big Data Analytics and the Transformation of Criminal Intelligence
Keywords:
Big Data Analytics, Criminal Intelligence, Predictive Policing, Artificial Intelligence, Intelligence-Led PolicingAbstract
Big data analytics is a game-changing technology in criminal intelligence as it helps law enforcement agencies to derive actionable insights from big and diverse data sets. This review highlights how integration of information from police records, surveillance systems, mobile devices, social media, financial transactions, geospatial databases, and open source intelligence are being used to improve criminal investigations using big data analytics. It provides an overview of essential analytical methods such as data mining, machine learning, text mining, link analysis, social network analysis and how they can be used in crime pattern analysis, predictive policing, organized crime detection and cybercrime investigations. The review also sheds light on the technical, ethical and legal issues related to data quality, privacy, algorithmic bias, governance, etc. with specific focus on the Indian context. Finally, it examines future trends like the use of artificial intelligence, real-time intelligence platforms, the cloud and edge computing, explainable AI, and cross-agency data sharing, which will influence intelligence-led policing in the future.
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